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VIRTUAL CITY ENVIRONMENT FOR ENGINEERING
PROBLEM BASED LEARNING
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THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN FUNDED WITH SUPPORT FROM THE EUROPEAN
COMMISSION. THIS PUBLICATION REFLECTS THE VIEWS ONLY OF THE
AUTHOR, AND THE COMMISSION CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY
USE WHICH MAY BE MADE OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED THEREIN.
PARTNERS
Instituto Superior
de Engenharia do
Porto, Portugal
University of
Thessaly, Greece
Fondazione Ikaros /
Santa Rita, Italy
University of Vigo,
Spain
Virtual Campus,
Portugal
University of
Valencia,
Spain
Ayas Naime Ali
Karatas Cok
Programli Lisesi,
Turkey
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Motivations
• The difficulty that secondary education students
have with Mathematics and other Science. This
prevents these students to follow a technical
academic path like Engineering.
• This is not due to lesser skills of these youngsters
but mostly due to wrong teaching strategies. We
cannot forget that this generation is the "net-
generation" or "digital natives”.
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Goals
1. Design, develop and validate a pedagogical methodology,
supported by a city-development game engine (SimCity like).
2. A validated pedagogical methodology to integrate the eCity
platform in engineering schools
3. A motivational methodology to be used in secondary or vocational
schools to integrate the eCity platform as a complementary
activity for students to develop their interest and motivation
towards engineering
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Target Groups
1. Students from secondary and vocational schools (initial levels) that
need to be motivated to follow and engineering or technical
academic career
2. Students from higher education in Engineering careers
3. Teachers/trainers from secondary and vocational schools which
will support their students and benefit from the eCity platform as
a complement to their teaching
4. Teachers from Higher Education and Engineering faculties that will
be able to tutor their students and complement their teaching
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Problem-based Learning (PBL)
• Students develop their ability to go through a
problem solving process, usually based on real-
life situations.
• Engineering is one of the areas where PBL is a
valid learning alternative.
• Games can be instantiated for learning as they
involve mental and physical stimulation and
develop practical skills.
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Analysis of Best Practices
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Academic
knowledge
needed to
play Sophisticated
design
techniques
Multiple
scenarios
Promotion of
interes and
creativity in
players
Promotion of
social
interaction
Promoting the
use of games
Communication
on social
networks
Multilingual and
multiplatform
Games
development
Facilitate
learning tasks
Evaluation
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Results: a set of 8 ready-available
problems
99
Energy
Distribution
Renewable
Energies
Internet Server
Providers
Mobile
Connection
Earthquake
Protection
Flood Protection Pollution Public
Transportation
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Results: Pedagogical and
Motivational Methodologies
• Students playing the scenarios as an introduction to topics or as
a motivation
• Engineering students themselves will develop new challenges
and problems, applying the concepts learned at higher
education
• Secondary/Vocational students will be solving the set of project-
developed challenges plus the new ones with the support of
engineering students
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The main objective of the eCITY project was to design, develop and validate a city-development simulation platform (Simcity like) which integrates and exploits Problem Based Learning challenges to be used to scaffold learning in engineering schools and, at the same time, foster the interest in Math, Sciences and Engineering in secondary school students.
The difficulty that secondary education students have with Mathematics and Sciences is a widespread problem in Europe as stated by several international studies like PISA or TIMMS.
And even when they do so, they still face a lot of problems on these disciplines at the Higher Education level, which generally demotivates them.
This is not due to lesser skills of these students but mostly due to wrong educational strategies.
We cannot forget that this generation is the "net-generation" or "digital natives": they are surrounded by technology, absorb information in shorter chunks, expect instant responses and feedback and want to be active in their learning.
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a learner-centered educational pedagogy in which students develop their ability to go through a problem solving process, usually based on real-life situations.
Engineering is one of the areas where PBL is a valid learning alternative and reportedly the benefits for engineering students are considerable improvements in critical, lateral and creative thinking, problem solving skills, group collaboration and communication skills.
In a convergent path, games can be instantiated for learning as they involve mental and physical stimulation and develop practical skills – they force the player to decide, to choose, to define priorities, to solve problems, etc.
Also important is the fact that the platform will be integrated in a clear pedagogical methodology, PBL-oriented, to ensure that the upmost relevance is given to the learning process, not the technology. Problems or challenges can be fed into the platform as homework, teamwork, curricular activities, extra-curricular competitions, big or small projects, etc. PBL can be incorporated within existing structures with little disruption as it can be implemented in a variety of forms. Therefore it is not necessary to change the curricular organization as problems can be formatted to different time and work schemes.